An inspector-general report this week revealed that a top Secret Service official suggested leaking confidential information on a congressman critical of the agency.

Assistant Director Edward Lowery discovered that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) had been rejected for a Service job back in 2003.

Chaffetz chairs the House Government Oversight Committee; he’s held multiple hearings into repeated Secret Service screw-ups in recent years — agents on the presidential detail getting drunk in Europe, others soliciting prostitutes in South America, people managing to jump the White House fence, etc.

“Some information that [Chaffetz] might find embarrassing needs to get out,” Lowery e-mailed another director. “Just to be fair.”

Forty-one? That’s how many Secret Service agents had some involvement in the shameful attempt to discredit Rep. Jason Chaffetz, now chair of the House Oversight Committee, by leaking his application to, and rejection by, the agency. Chaffetz had sharply criticized the Secret Service after a series of scandals and bungled operations, and some within the agency apparently thought they could shut Chaffetz up by leaking his personnel data. That, needless to say, turned into a very big mistake. Chaffetz ramped up his ire, forcing DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson to investigate the Secret Service yet again, this time for corruption.

As it turns out, there was plenty to investigate. Far from being an isolated incident, DHS found some level of culpability with more than three dozen agents, all of whom face disciplinary action ranging from reprimands to suspensions. And the circle of guilt apparently extends to the highest levels of the agency:

“A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigation into the U.S. Secret Service’s disclosure of the personnel files of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has resulted in discipline for 41 agents.

The leaker has also resigned, according to a statement by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson.

The conduct of 57 Secret Service personnel was reviewed, including 11 in the Senior Executive Service level, the highest levels of government. Of those, 41 are receiving some level of discipline, according to the statement by Johnson.”

……This raises all sorts of other questions. How did 41 Secret Service agents have some involvement or knowledge of this “smear campaign,” as ABC News puts it, and leadership either did nothing or knew nothing about it.